All About Spike - Plain Version
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Secrets and Lies
By Caro
Chapter Twenty-Six
"So, is Angel still using that gel to
make his hair stick straight up?" Dawn asked, flopped
across Buffy's bed late Friday afternoon while Buffy tried
to go through the mail that had accumulated in her absence.
"I always liked the way Angel did his
hair," Buffy replied. Another offer for a credit
card? Into the trash it went. "Besides, it's a bit shorter
now, so he doesn't need to use as much."
Dawn laughed, a pleasant sound Buffy couldn't
remember hearing in a while. "Maybe he could lend some
to Connor...or get him a hair cut."
"Or a personality," Buffy muttered
under her breath.
More laughter from Dawn. "I heard that!
So I take it he didn't improve with acquaintance."
"Not at all." She tossed the last
of the junk mail into the trash and shifted in her chair,
resting her arms along its back. "It's a sad situation,
Dawn. Angel's been given this gift that he never dreamed he
could have...and it's turning out to be more of a curse. Connor
hates him -- wants him dead, really -- and there's this whole
ugly situation with Cordelia."
"Yeah, Willow told me a little about
that last night while you were eating. Ewww." Dawn picked
at the comforter. "How'd Angel take the news about you
and Spike? Did he get extra-broody?"
"You really don't like Angel, do you?"
"What can I say? When you two were together,
it was always this big angst-fest where you acted like everything
was the end of the world. It's the duty of a younger-yet-taller
sister to despise such things and give her older-but-shorter
sibling grief about it."
"You weren't taller then...and are you
ever going to stop reminding me you got the tall genes in
the family?"
"Nope. And you're not going to tell me
what happened between you and Angel, are you?"
Now it was Buffy's turn to laugh. "Call
it Big Sister's prerogative."
Dawn tilted her head to one side, considering.
"You look happy. It's nice."
"Everything's good in Buffy-land at the
moment. I don't know how long it will last because, well,
you know me and happiness is always a prelude to world-ending
disaster, but I've decided to enjoy it while I can. And speaking
of disaster..."
She sighed as she levered herself out of the
chair. "You're in on the Scooby meeting tonight; we've
got to talk about where to put the Potentials. Giles says
there are more coming and we can't keep cramming them in here."
"Does it mean I get my room back? Or,
at least, get fewer roommates?"
"That's definitely on the agenda. I think
it'd be better for all of us if we weren't doing sardine imitations."
***
Xander was the first one to present an option
for solving the potential housing problem. "The Crawford
Street mansion -- it's still standing and it might take a
little work, but there's lots of room there. Does Angel still
own it or whatever?"
"Considering it was Angelus who moved
us in, I somehow doubt the legal niceties were observed,"
Spike pointed out.
"Not to mention Buffy and I both have
very unpleasant memories of that place," Giles added.
"Um, make that three of us." Spike
looked uncomfortable. "Not a great time for me, either."
Xander looked around the table, tapping the
plans under his hands. "Okay, not the odds on favorites.
Let's not just dismiss it out of hand, though. It's got space,
which we are sorely in need of, running water and electricity...and
if we can get our hands on it, it'll certainly solve our housing
problems."
Buffy had to admit Xander had a point, though
she didn't like the thought of it. As Giles said, too many
memories. "We'll count that as one option. Any others?"
Others were pitifully few. There was Xander's
apartment, but that wouldn't do much to ease the situation
and his neighbors would likely be far quicker to react to
overcrowding than Buffy's, who seemed to have become somewhat
immune to the sight of strange goings-on over the years. The
idea of setting the basement up dormitory style had its own
problems, including losing one of their workout areas. Reluctantly,
Buffy asked Willow to track down who owned the mansion in
the city archives. If Angel did somehow hold the deed, he'd
probably be more than happy to let them use it.
"Not the easiest place to defend,"
Spike said after she'd made the request. "Sure the minions
were especially stupid, but I made it in and out of that place
with no one noticing. Several side entrances that I know of,
and I never got to explore it fully."
"Why I pulled the plans," Xander
said. "Thought you and I could take a look at them, go
over the weak spots. If we end up using it, we'll need to
do a walk-through, figure out where Willow might be able to
help us with some magical defenses."
Willow didn't look incredibly thrilled by
Xander's assumption, but Buffy could have hugged him at that
moment. He'd said he'd make an effort with Spike and he was.
Even Spike recognized it, cutting back on the snark slightly
and actually calling him "Xander" once.
It wasn't the best of decisions, but it was
forward movement. They needed to do something to relieve the
situation; she just wasn't sure this was it. Then there was
the question of what they'd do with the girls after all this
was done...assuming any were left standing.
The meeting broke up and Buffy decided it
was time to make an effort to at least put names to faces
with the new girls. Ellen, Kate, Tina and Tracy. She kept
repeating the names in her head, hoping she'd remember them
somehow.
The girls were the mixture of eagerness and
nervousness she'd come to associate with most of the potentials
and Buffy found herself remembering her own fear the first
time she'd come face to face with her first vampire. She'd
been thinking of that a lot lately, watching her life come
full circle as she trained the girls. No matter what happened
to her, the slayer line would continue. It might take a while,
what with Faith being a guest of the State of California,
but it would go on.
Once the conversation was done, she looked
around the living room for Spike and discovered he wasn't
there. Wandering into the kitchen, she found Xander with the
plans to the Crawford Street place spread out on the island,
making notes. "You're really serious about this,"
she said as she joined him.
"We've got to do something. We're living
on top of each other here, Buf, and that's going to do as
much to kick our ass as the First. Tell me it wasn't nice
in LA not having to wait forever to take a shower."
"Or stepping over sleeping bodies. It
was nice...not that we actually had time to enjoy it. I thought
Spike was going to go over this with you."
"He was, but Giles snagged him, said
he wanted to talk. They're down in the basement."
It took all of Buffy's willpower to keep from
heading straight for the basement door. She might not like
it, but Giles was going to talk with Spike sooner or later...and
it wasn't like the situation with Angel where she had to worry
that they might happily do each other physical damage. At
least, she hoped it wasn't.
She opted to stay in the kitchen, talk with
Xander about ways the mansion could be used to the best advantage.
Her eyes kept straying to the basement door, though, one ear
cocked.
The sound of voics raised and angry, then
feet pounding up the stairs. The door opened and Spike stepped
into the kitchen, face dark. He paused for just a moment,
barely enough time to make eye contact with Buffy and then
stormed toward the front of the house. Buffy was after him
immediately. "Spike?"
"Going out," he said over his shoulder,
not breaking stride. The front door opened and slammed shut
behind him with a bang that had heads in the living room turning
to look. Buffy stared at the closed door for a moment, then
turned to find Giles standing in door between the kitchen
and dining room. "I'm afraid we had a disagreement,"
he said by way of explanation, the calmness of his voice doing
little to mask the tightness underneath.
"Just great." She headed for the
foyer, fully intending to grab her own jacket and go after
him.
"Buffy, don't." Giles' voice was
insistent.
"You think I should just let him storm
out of the house like that?"
"I think the fact he didn't ask you to
accompany him indicates he might want to be alone for a while."
"When he's pissed off and angry? Wouldn't
this be a perfect time for the First to try the trigger again?"
Giles glanced at the audience watching them
from the living room and reached out to draw Buffy aside into
the relative privacy of the dining room. "From everything
you've told me, it sounds as if the trigger works on Spike
when he's relatively weak, unfocused. Much as I hate to say
this, the renewal of the relationship between the two of you
has clearly given him the focus and purpose he was lacking
when he fell under the influence of the First."
That was somewhat encouraging, but Buffy still
found her eyes sliding toward the door, feet starting to move.
"Buffy, you spoke this morning of trust. If you are going
to have a relationship with Spike, then you are going to have
to trust him, not feel required to go running after him every
time he's upset. You need to give him his own space, acknowledge
his separate identity. For my part, I have no doubt he'll
come back through that door within a few hours."
She looked at him, looked at the door, looked
back at Giles. "I hate it when you're right. But if he's
not back in two hours, I'm going after him."
***
By the time ninety minutes had elapsed, Buffy
was sitting on the front porch, waiting. She did trust him.
It wasn't a matter of trust. She was worried about him.
She was worried he'd gotten so angry he'd
walked out the door with no intention of coming back...just
like all the other men in her life.
Giles was right; she needed to trust him.
He said he'd be at her side, so she should believe it. Spike
was the one who'd always come back, who wouldn't go away even
when she wanted him to. Why should she think he'd leave her
after a simple argument with Giles, which was hardly the first
-- and certainly not the last -- they'd had?
Sighing, she wrapped her arms around her legs
and bent forward to rest her head on her knees. She'd gotten
through the first few hurdles of this new relationship just
fine, but there were more to come. It'd be so easy to screw
things up, she didn't even want to think about it.
A familiar tingle at the back of her neck
and she looked up to find Spike coming up the front walk,
hands shoved into his jeans pockets. This wasn't the swaggering,
sexy gait she knew so well, but something more thoughtful.
He didn't saw a word as he approached, but
settled next to her as if he'd just been out for a stroll
around the block. "Everything all quiet?" he asked.
"Relatively. I thought we were going
to have a slapping match with Andrew when Vi declared that
The League of Gentlemen was juvenile."
Spike chuckled. "Never a dull moment."
They sat silently for a while, watching the
night sky. Various noises drifted out, the normal sounds of
a house filled with teenaged girls. Buffy sneaked a look sideways
at Spike, taking in the line of his profile. Tomorrow was
Saturday, one week that they'd been together. Thinking of
everything that had happened, it felt much longer.
As if he knew she was watching, he turned
his head slightly so their eyes met. She saw mixed emotions
there, still some anger and hurt, but predominant was love
and affection. "I left because I felt a sudden urge to
snap his neck," he said quietly. "Nothing to stop
me now, no chip to hold me back. Figured it'd be better to
get out and cool down before any violence happened."
"I wanted to come after you; Giles convinced
me I needed to give you some space."
"The bastard's a wise man. Glad you didn't.
I would have wanted you to take sides and that's not what
you need to be doing."
He wasn't going to tell her what they'd said
to each other. She asked Giles, practically demanded it, but
he'd refused, saying Spike could if he chose. "I wish
you two could get along."
"Oh, don't worry. We won't break into
open warfare; not our style with each other." He snorted.
"The marvelous irony is that we actually both want the
same thing: for you to be safe, happy and cared for. We just
feel very differently about how it's to be accomplished."
She slid closer to him and let her head droop
to rest against his shoulder. "Maybe we can convince
him."
"Maybe." He didn't sound hopeful,
but he slipped his arm around her and having him here was
enough for the moment.
***
The rest of the weekend passed in relative
quiet. Giles and Spike were civil and highly British toward
one another. Anya led another successful raid on Costco, finding
bargains no one else seemed able to ferret out. Research on
the First and other topics continued, including who actually
held the deed to the Crawford Street place. There seemed to
be some confusion in the records and Buffy tried calling Los
Angeles to ask Angel what he knew, only to get the company
answering machine, cheery message provided, ironically enough,
by Cordelia Chase.
Chores and training, patrol at night, looking
for further evidence of what the First might be planning.
It was the now familiar rhythm, different only in the fact
that she no longer drifted off to sleep alone in her bed.
All too soon it was Monday morning and she actually had to
pay attention to the alarm clock instead of letting Spike's
nuzzling of her neck entice her to stay in bed a little longer.
"You've been out of town seeing Dad,"
Dawn reminded her as they drove into the parking lot. "Principal
Wood asked me about it Thursday, wanted to know if I'd heard
from you."
"Checking up on me, eh? Did he show any
signs of evilness while I was gone?"
"You mean, other than the fact he's the
principal and therefore viewed as the enemy by the students?
Nope."
Buffy slide the car into one of the spots
reserved for faculty and staff. "Keep your eyes open.
I'm sure he's up to something."
She was just putting her desk in order when
Wood strolled by. "She returns. Have a good time in Los
Angeles?"
Buffy shrugged casually. "It was okay.
Lots of business with Dad. We got through everything, though."
"Good. You'll probably have a full schedule
today; we had more than a few incidents while you were gone
and I should warn you that some of the complaints are of a
romantic nature. Things get hairy close to Valentine's Day,
I guess."
She'd totally forgotten Valentine's Day was
that Friday. "You know how it is with kids; they don't
have anyone or see the person they want involved with someone
else, they get all over-dramatic."
Now it was his turn to shrug. "It's kind
of hard not to feel that way when you see all the advertisements
and are flying solo. I try not to pay attention, but it feels
a little funny not being part of a couple this time of year."
"Yeah, I know how that goes. Been there
myself." Wait a minute. Was that an announcement of his
dating status?
"I was wondering, maybe if you're not
busy, we could have coffee one evening."
Oh, God, he was flirting with her, asking
her out. Maybe it wasn't serious; maybe he wanted to get her
away from school, try to get information out of her.
He paused, considering. "Actually, dinner
would be nicer. If you're not doing anything Friday, maybe
we could do dinner? Talk about our current state of singleness?
At least, I think you're single; I thought you mentioned something
earlier about not seeing anyone at the moment."
It wasn't just information; he was asking
her out on an honest-to-God date. A part of her was tempted
to say "yes"; she could use the opportunity to find
out more about him, try to discover what he was up to, because
he was definitely up to something.
But if she accepted, she'd be lying, pretending
she was available. The idea of lying to Principal Wood didn't
bother her so much because he was, after all, quite possibly
evil and therefore probably lying to her. She'd be going out
on a date, talking and laughing and flirting with him, pretending
she found him attractive. If she could determine once and
for all he was up to something nefarious, that would be great
and she could let the end justify the means. But what if she
didn't find out he was up to something? What if he wasn't
up to anything at all? What if he asked her for a second date?
There was Spike. How would he react? He'd probably put a good
face on it, but he'd feel hurt at the idea of her spending
the evening with another man, especially on Valentine's Day.
No, no more lying about her relationship.
There'd been too much of that in the past. She could find
another way to discover if Wood was truly evil. Ooh, she and
Spike could spend Friday evening together and break into the
school, search his office. Valentine's Day, slayer style.
Smoochies and fighting evil.
Aware he was waiting, Buffy let a regretful
smile cross her face. "I was single, but I am seeing
someone now..."
The End
January 30, 2003 - March 23, 2003